The present invention relates to a tongue depressor for making a diagnosis of the throat and the larynx, and more particularly, to a tongue depressor with illuminating means having a disposable blade.
Tongue depressors have been used for making a direct diagnosis of the throat and the larynx within the mouth. In recent years, the interior of the mouth has been illuminated by illuminating means provided on a tongue depressor instead of a reflector provided on the head of a doctor. Japanese Utility Model Public Disclosure No. 50-31787, for example, discloses a tongue depressor with means for illuminating the interior of the mouth which comprises a blade made of a light transmissible material coupled to a light source.
To be specific, as illustrated in FIG. 8, the prior art tongue depressor A comprises a main cylindrical body 70, illuminating means including an electric source 71 and a light source 72 provided within the main cylindrical body 70, an inner cylindrical body 73 for accommodating the light source 72 therein, and a light transmissible body 74 detachably supported within the inner cylindrical body 73. The light transmissible body 74 is made of a transparent hard material and has a bent free end. In use, an electric switch (not shown) is turned on to light the light source 72. As a result, the light emitted from the light source 72 is transmitted through the transparent light transmissible body 74 and sent out from the bent free end of the transparent light transmissible body 74. The throat and the larynx are thus subjected to diagnosis by illuminating the interior of the mouth with the light emitted from the bent free end of the transparent light transmissible body 74.
However, the prior art tongue depressor having the construction described above suffers from a great light transmission loss because the light transmissible body 74 is utilized as the optical path. In view of this loss, therefore, it is necessary to increase the light output. This will make the light source and tongue depressor large in size and complicated in shape and, consequently, the tongue depressor will be expensive to manufacture and be inconvenient to handle.
On the other hand, with the development of the medical safety technique, it has recently become desirable that medical instruments used in diagnosis be disposable. This desire can be fulfilled if the manufacturing cost is low, but has not yet been fulfilled for the reasons described above.